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The Role of Memory in the Relationship Between Ancient Romans and the Gods

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The Role of Memory in the Relationship Between Ancient Romans and the Gods res historica 47, 2019 DOI: 10.17951/rh.2019.47.29-40 Danuta Musiał (Nicolaus copernicus University in toruń) https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0707-6799 the role of Memory in the relationship Between ancient romans and the Gods Rola pamięci w relacjach starożytnych Rzymian z bogami Abstract In the article I discuss the role of rituals in the construction of religious memo- ry. The concept of cultural memory of Jan Assman is the starting point of my research. In Rome, the social frame of social memory created the customs of ancestors, and historical examples, the places in the topography of Rome and figures from the past were ‘the figu- res’ of memory. The meticulous observance of the ritual characteristic of the Roman reli- gion can be counted as an example of memory practices. Through the ritual people were confirming their memory of the gods and were reminding the gods of their expectations for them. The ritual was a kind of procedural memory that was connecting the Romans with their ancestors and the ancestral deities. Remembering and forgetting played an im- portant role in many rituals related to, for example, the admission of foreign deities to the Roman pantheon. The memory was a form of godliness, which is why in various forms it was present in the images of Gods and ritual practice. Key words: cultural memory, mos maiorum, roman religion 1. IntroductioN Studies on memory are one of the more popular research trends within the framework of humanities and social sciences, albeit the scope of the phenomenon is different in particular disciplines that belong to these fields1. 1 Introduction of the problem of memory in humanities: B. Szacka, Czas przeszły – pamięć – mit. Współczesne społeczeństwo polskie wobec przeszłości, Warszawa 2006; M. Golka, Pamięć społeczna i jej implanty, Warszawa 2009; M. Saryusz-Wolska, Spotkania czasu z miejscem: studia 30 Danuta MUsiał The publications from the last thirty-some years clearly show that ‘memory turn’ is also clearly noticeable in historiography, especially in the works on the most recent history. Jay Winter, in an article discussing the ‘obsession with memory’ characterising the studies of the history of the 20th century, indicates that its source are the experiences of the two world wars, and, most of all, the trauma of the Holocaust2. The person Winter considers to be the father of the ‘memory’ boom is Pierre Nora, whose extensive work on the realms of memory (1984–1992) met with great interest of historians. Nora showed that memory preserved in monuments, street names, objects, holidays, religions, myths, legends, and historical works, is our key to learning about and getting accustomed to the past. In a conclusion to the quoted text Winter draws attention to the dangers carried by excessive usage of the issues of memory in the historical discourse and indicates that to a significant extent they are identical to the ones pointed out by the representatives of other disciplines. In his opinion the most important problems arise from the great conceptual chaos, impeding understanding of certain theories as well as mutual understanding between researchers. The fact that everyone is discussing memory does not mean that everyone assigns the same significance to this word. Memory should not be perceived as a homogeneous phenomenon, as under the influence of different factors it can be interpreted in different ways – this applies both to individual and social memory. In general, memory depends on the place, time, gender, social status, ethnic origin, and religion This reminds one of the problems with understanding other terms, deeply entangled culturally and historically, such as love, hate, shame, etc., also being an object of historical analyses. Do societies remember? A positive answer to this question was given in the 1930s by a French sociologist, Maurice Halbwachs, to whom the contemporary ‘memory studies’ owe two essential concepts: ‘collective memory’ and ‘social frameworks of memory‘. The central point of his theory is a belief that the social group in which we function creates frameworks for our individual memory. Therefore, what and how we remember does not depend on us, but rather on the visions of the past of our environment. Halbwachs’ ideas have long remained on the fringe of the modern humanistic thought, and only at the end of the previous age that they found their place in the debates surrounding the problems of memory, i.a. owing to the studies initiated by Jan o pamięci i miastach, Warszawa 2011; P. Connerton, Jak społeczeństwa pamiętają, transl. by M. Napiórkowski, Warszawa 2012. 2 J. Winter, The Memory Boom in Contemporary Historical Studies, ‘Raritan: A Quarterly Review’ 2001, 31, 1, pp. 52–66. the role of MeMory iN the relatioNship BetweeN AncieNt roMaNs and the GoDs 31 and Aleida Assmann. Based on the views of Halbwachs, Assmann developed the theory of ‘cultural memory’, enabling better understanding of the process of development of the sense of community by a group of people connected by symbolic ties in the present and the sense of connection with historical or mythical ancestors. In the process of creation of ‘cultural memory’ the process of reminding, transmission of knowledge about the past, is of key significance, as relations within a group are created owing to this process, determining what nowadays in general we refer to as ‘identity’3. Assmann’s theory has been developed on the basis of studies on the phenomenon of memory in ancient societies (Egypt, Israel, Greece), therefore it met with major interest of the historians of the ancient world, inspiring the development of studies on different aspects and functions of memory within this discipline. An interesting area for exploration turned out to be the republican Rome with its developed practices of memory which constitute an integral part of the political, social and religious system. In the recent years we have been dealing with a clear increase in the number of works focusing on the significance of various aspects of memory in Roman culture. Their authors are unanimous in indicating the usefulness of the research tools created by Assmann, primarily in the studies on the role of cultural memory in the process of construction of Roman identity4. 2. Mos MaioRuM – the fraMeworks of MeMory The control of memory and forgetting has always been of the greatest concerns of classes, groups and persons who dominated historical societies. It was no different in ancient Rome, where memory was the privilege of the rulers, i.e. the aristocratic elite, which constructed its identity referring to the model developed by the ancestors. The basis for 3 R. Traba, Wstęp, in: J. Assmann, Pamięć kulturowa. Pismo, zapamiętywanie i polityczna tożsamość w cywilizacjach starożytnych, transl. by A. Kryczyńska-Pham, Warszawa 2008, pp. 11–26. 4 Important publications in the recent years include: H.I. Flower, The Art of Forgetting: Disgrace and Oblivion in Roman Political Culture, Chapel Hill 2006; A. Rodríguez Mayorgas, La memoria de Roma: oralidad, escritura e historia en la república romana, Oxford 2007; as well as the volumes of studies being a result of a major research project implemented under the supervision of Karl Galinsky: ‘Memoria Romana’: Memory in Rome and Rome in Memory, ed. by K. Galinsky, Ann Arbor 2014; Cultural Memories in the Roman Empire, ed. by K. Galinsky, K.D.S. Lapatin, Los Angeles 2015; Memory in Ancient Rome and Early Christianity, ed. by K. Galinsky, Oxford, 2016. The website of the project presents a list of the most recent detailed publications concerning the issues of memory in Rome: http://www.laits.utexas. edu/memoria/ [access: 28 I 2018]. 32 Danuta MUsiał this model, functioning at different levels of public life was the system of exchange of services and benefits based on trust, ‘good faith’ (bona fides) and the feeling of gratitude (gratia). The condition of stability for this system was that the main participants of the common set of values should follow the standards, models of activities and behaviours, designated by the Latin authors with the term mos maiorum. This concept is translated as ‘ancestral custom’ or more generally as ‘tradition’, primarily following the definition of Warron, mentioned by Servius in a comment to Virgil’s Aeneid. It specifies that a custom (mos) accepted by everyone with the passage of time becomes a tradition (consuetudo)5. The term was clarified in greater detail in the Festus’ lexicon, where we read that mos is an institution of the ancestors (institutum patrium), therefore the memory (memoria) of the ancients6. Claudia Moatti calls this particular kind of memory inherited from the ancestors the ‘memory of the City’7. Thus understood, memory would be a kind of knowledge about the past, which was used when evaluating the conduct of the ‘contemporary’, which corresponds to the concept of ‘cultural memory’ outlined by Assmann. Danièle and Yves Roman, in a work on the identity discourses of the Romans, emphasising the significance of the phenomenon, call the respect for the standards established in the past the ‘second religion’ of the Roman aristocracy. The ancestors were a source of authority (auctoritas), which legitimised power (nobilitas), as a guard of tradition and its only legal interpreter8. Vagueness of the concept of mos maiorum was one of the sources of its incredible effectiveness as a regulator and measure of social behaviours of Roman aristocrats of both genders in private and public lives, both in the relations with other members of the society and the external world. The authority of the ancestors also guaranteed the functioning of all the institutions, which is exemplified by the Senate. The significance and competences of this most important institution of the Republican Rome arose exclusively from mos maiorum, therefore the scope of its powers was practically unlimited.
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